Is there such a thing...? : A study of antiracism education in Finland

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Department of Teacher Education University of Helsinki

Aminkeng Atabong Alemanji

Is there such a thing…?

A study of antiracism education in Finland

To be presented with the permission on the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences of the University of Helsinki, for public discussion in the Lecture Hall 229, Siltavuorenpenger 5 Aurora on Monday 31^st October 2016 at noon.

Helsinki 2016

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Supervisor:

Professor Fred Dervin University of Helsinki

Custos:

Professor Lasse Lipponen University of Helsinki

Opponent:

Professor Heidi Safia Mirza Goldsmiths University of London

Pre-examiners:

Professor John Preston University of East London

Dr. Gavin Titley

Lecturer National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Cover: Slogans by Aminkeng A Alemanji

Unigrafia, Heslinki, 2016

ISBN 978-951-51-2559-0 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-2560-6 (PDF)

University of Helsinki, Faculty of Behavioural Science Department of Teacher Education

Research Report 400

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Abstract in English

In this thesis I set out to investigate what antiracism education in Finland is at a conceptual, methodological and practical level. At the conceptual level, this study examines how and why antiracism is theorised and explores the challenges to and possible gains from a potential shift in existing antiracist strategies in Finland. At the practical and methodological levels (using both literature and research data) this study investigates how antiracism education Finland is “done” and how it could be done differently.

This thesis includes a collection of five articles. The first article, “If an apple is a foreign apple you have to wash it very carefully”: Youth discourses on racism (2016), is set at the intersection of formal and non-formal education and critically examines the use of “wrong” questions in antiracism discourses. The second article, Antiracism Apps as Actants of Education for Diversities (2015), examines how two mobile phone applications could be used as antiracism educational tools, bearing in mind the potentials and limitations of such technologies. The third article, Educating Children to Survive within a Neo-Racist Framework: Parents’ Struggle, (submitted), set in informal/non-formal education, investigates the different strategies employed by mothers of immigrant background children to educate their child or children on how to respond to racial violence. Article four, “Zebra World” – The Promotion of Imperial Stereotypes in a Children’s Book (2015), challenges the binary and stereotypical agenda of educational materials regarding how they tell the story of “us”

and “them”. The last article, Holocaust Education: An Alternative Approach to Antiracism Education? A Study of a Holocaust Textbook Used in 8th Grade in an International School in Finland (2015), examines how, through the notion of intersectionality, educators can use the concepts of racism and neo-racism to teach about the Holocaust and vice versa.

Grounded in an understanding of racism based on postcoloniality and neo-racism, this study investigates racism in Finland using four interrelated lenses: Finnish exceptionalism, coloniality of power, whiteness theory and denial of racism. It unearths the hidden structural hierarchies (re)produced, sustained and recycled by power structures. In addition, this study argues that since antiracism as a word endorses a recognition of the existence of racism, it is important to build and offer antiracism programmes in and out of schools. It calls for antiracism education as a discipline to be given more space in formal education and proposes strategies through which this can be achieved. Furthermore, it proposes that antiracism education must be ready to be self-critical, bearing in mind that there is no one true solution to racism.

Keywords: Antiracism education, non-formal, informal and formal education, Finland, Racism

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Tiivistelmä suomeksi

Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan antirasistista kasvatusta Suomessa käsitteellisellä, menetelmällisellä ja käytäntöjen tasolla. Antirasistisen kasvatuksen käsitteellinen tarkastelu keskittyy siihen, miten antirasismin käsite ymmärretään, miksi se ymmärretään näin sekä millaisia haasteita ja uusia avauksia sisältyy olemassa olevien antirasististen strategioiden mahdolliseen muuttumiseen Suomessa. Antirasistisen kasvatuksen menetelmien ja käytäntöjen osalta tarkastelen sekä tutkimuskirjallisuutta että aineistoa hyödyntäen sitä, miten antirasistista kasvatusta Suomessa tehdään ja kuinka sitä voitaisiin tehdä toisin.

Väitöskirja koostuu viidesta artikkelista. Ensimmäinen artikkeli “If an apple is a foreign apple you have to wash it very carefully”: Youth discourses on racism (painossa), joka käsittelee formalin ja non-formaalin kasvatuksen yhtymäkohtaa, kritisoi antirasistisia diskursseja “väärien” kysymysten kysymisestä.Toinen artikkeli Antiracism Apps as Actants of Education for Diversities (2015), tarkastelee, kuinka kahta mobiilisovellusta voidaan käyttää antirasistisen kasvatuksen välineinä pitäen samalla mielessä sekä teknologian tuomat mahdollisuudet että sen ajat. Kolmas artikkeli Educating Children to Survive within a Neo-Racist Framework: Parents’ Struggle, (lähetetty arvioitavaksi), asettuu informaalin ja non-formaalin kasvatuksen alueelle tarkastellen, millaisia strategioita maahanmuuttajataustaisten lasten äidit käyttävät kasvattaessaan lastaan tai lapsiaan kohtaamaan ja vastaamaanrodullistamiseen perustuvaan väkivaltaan. Neljäs artikkeli “Zebra World” – The Promotion of Imperial Stereotypes in a Children’s Book (2015) haastaa kasvatusmateriaalien binaarisen ja stereotyyppisen asetelman kysyessään kuinka ne kertovat tarinaa

“meistä” ja “heistä”. Viimeinen, viides artikkeli Holocaust Education: An Alternative Approach to Antiracism Education? A Study of a Holocaust Textbook Used in 8th Grade in an International School in Finland (2015) tarkastelee, kuinka kasvattajat voivat hyödyntää intersektionaalisuuden käsitettä käyttäessään rasismin ja uusrasismin käsitteitä holokaustin ja rasismin välisiä yhteyksiä opettaessaan.

Tämä tutkimus nostaa Suomessa ilmenevän rasismin tarkastelun kohteeksi hyödyntäen neljää toisiinsa kiinnittyvää näkökulmaa, jotka perustuvat postkolonialistisiin ja uusrasismia käsitteleviin teoretisointeihin. Näkökulmat ovat: suomalaisen erinomaisuuden ja erityisyyden kertomus (Finnish exceptionalism), koloniaaliset valtarakenteet (coloniality of power), valkoisuuden teoria (whiteness theory) sekä rasismin kiistäminen (denial of racism). Nämä näkökulmat tuovat esiin näkymättömät rakenteelliset hierarkiat, joita valtarakenteet tuottavat, pitävät yllä sekä muodostavat ja käyttävät yhä uudelleen. Lisäksi tämä tutkimus painottaa, että koska antirasismin käsite perustuu rasismin olemassaolon tunnistamiselle, antirasististen kasvatusmenetelmien rakentaminen ja tarjoaminen

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sekä koulussa että sen ulkopuolella on tärkeää. Tutkimus peräänkuuluttaa antirasistisen kasvatuksen näkemistä omana tutkimusalanaan, jolle tulisi olla enemmän tilaa formaalissa kasvatuksessa sekä esittää keinoja tämän toteuttamiseksi. Tutkimus myös ehdottaa, että antirasistisen kasvatuksen sisällä tarvitaan valmiutta itsekriittisyyteen, sillä rasismin ongelmaan ei ole yhtä ainoaa ratkaisua.

Asiasanat: antirasistinen kasvatus, formaali koulutus, informaali koulutus, non-formaali koulutus, Suomi, rasismi

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Acknowledgments

This is doctoral research has been a journey. One which has made me, broken me and remade me into a better person. It has given me a voice not just to tell my story to the many people whom I have been blessed to talk to during this journey but to question my beliefs and stereotypes. During this journey a lot of people have supported me in many different ways. This page is not enough to list all their names and their great contributions. However, my heart is always big enough for them.

It is with immense gratitude that I acknowledge the support and help of my Professor and friend Fred Dervin. He was always there for me. He saw in me potentials that I only realized years later.

While in the dark, he always trusted me to find my way into the light and was always there with an open arm for me to grasp on to. You always gave me a chance when no one did or even considered doing. Thanks you. I will forever be in your debts.

Professor John Preston University of East London and Gavin Titley National University of Ireland, Maynooth who reviewed my thesis are also deserving of much appreciation. Their comments were very valuable towards making this thesis what it is today. I am also honoured to Professor Heidi Safia Mirza as my opponent. Thank you for creating the time to support young researchers like myself. I am also grateful to Professor Lasse Lipponen for accepting to be my Custos.

Anna-Leena Riitaoja, you have helped me in many ways. Taking the time put to read my draft was something you didn’t have to do but you did. That my friend is something I will never forget. Your critique and our conversations have influence me greatly in this process and for all these, I say thank you.

Heidi Layne. Thank for your friendship during these years. Our fond memories abroad and in Helsinki will always be cherished. Writing “Bibi” with you was fun. Having you by side through my time at in this department was a blessing because your support has been enormous. There is still much ahead to do together

Boby Mafi, our journey started in Oulu and I am happy you were part of this chapter in my life. Our theoretical discussions on the issues on racism and racism in Finland were essential in my understanding on racism. Thanks

Edda Oskarsdottir and Rita Waye Johnson Longfor with whom I collaborated for one my articles in the collection of this thesis…thank you. Our time working together and the friendship that developed thereafter has being wonderful.

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The wonderful people of E4D research group: Heini Paavola thank you for trusting me to teach your courses. They help me fine tune my understanding of the subject. Hille Janhonen-Abruquah, Thank you for always wanting to help. You have a kind heart and your reference when I visited Cape Coast help me meet and talk to incredible people. I am sorry for not participating in the North- South-South project due to lack of time not lack of interest. Pia-Maria Niemi, Tuija Itkonen, Kaisa Hahl, Mika Launikari, Anu Härkönen and Hanna Posti-Ahokas. This thesis would not be the same with your critic during our PhD seminars. This is because you have witnessed the development of this thesis and the person behind it. Saija Benjamin, I learnt a lot from our collaboration in the two articles we wrote. Your comments during this process helped me think things through. Thanks.

Haiqin Liu, Ashley Simpson, Xin Xing and Merry I also benefited from your company and the ideas we shared in the seminar. I am deeply grateful to each and every one of you. During my studies, I also took part in a postcolonial discussion group where I met and share lots of ideas with Ina Juva Minna Seikkula and Jenni Helakorpi. You made me a better thinker.

Anni Stauffer thank you and sorry. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for your support throughout these years, you have always been there to cover for me with the kids when this thesis kept me away. You have helped me understand Finland from an insider’s perspective. I am sorry that I often bring my work home, testing theories on you. Sorry for the stress I brought to you during these years.

To my beautiful daughters. Each of you are a blessings and you are the reason why I embarked and stayed on this journey. I urge you to embrace the struggle like you did me. Thank you very much.

I am also indebted to my friends and family who encouraged me to keep struggling. Special thanks to my parents for investing in my education and helping me understand the gift of learning. Special thanks also to K, Yong, Ngwi-njang, Bate, Youyou, Dr, Babs, Landa, The Ajubesehs, Big Amin, Alem, Chief, Etta Nkem friends from LIMCOF and LECDA for your encouragement.

Lastly I do wish to pay respect to the memory of two people who are no longer with us but contributed towards this thesis. Mum, I wish you were still with us to share this moment. Thanks for pushing me…even in your absence memories of you still push me towards being the best I can.

Regis Machart I wish you were here to read/hear how I have used your advice to strengthen my conviction on the asset in collecting my data in English. You are both missed.

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Writing or talking about racism can be one of the most difficult things to do. This process has brought both tears and laughter to my life. The tears have been due to the personal difficulties I have encountered, ranging from a lack of funding for some periods of my studies, to problems related to my weak Finnish language skills and the daily struggles of being black (non-white/non- European) in a “white country” like Finland – growing up I would refer to it as white man country.

The laughter has been because of the ever so faint light that I see at the end of the tunnel, as well as the wonderful people I have met and the places I have visited because of this work. When I began this journey, I did not fully understand the weight of the burden that it would place on me. It only dawned on me during my PhD that I was conducting this research not to thrive but to struggle, like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, who was condemned for eternity to push a rock up a hill only for it to roll back down again. Here, struggle does not mean losing faith or not being angry, because, for example, my anger helps me make my struggle visible. On the contrary, struggle makes one strong;

as every portrait of Sisyphus shows, he is a man hardened by his efforts. Ta-Neishi Coates, in his best seller Between the World and me (2015), reminds me that my call to struggle is not because it assures me of victory but because it assures me an insane life. I do not believe my work will rid the world of racism, because it will take more than the words of a “nobody” like me to change the world. I hope, however, that my work will make a difference in the specific context I have researched. I also hope that my work will help relieve some of the burden of racism and that, through it, people will understand that although race is just a human construct, its effect on the daily lives of people of all races, especially non-whites in Finland, is enormous and often incommunicable.

In this study I often appear to be polemical (one of my students described my work as

“confrontational”) in my discussion of racism in Finland. This may be because I am writing from the position of an outsider, the racialised, the Other, the once invisible now made hyper visible in order to be blamed or punished. Despite how I and people who look like me are positioned in Finland, my struggle is driven by two main desires: first, to understand the world around me and help make it better, second, to repay my debt to a country (Finland) that has given me so much. This is my story wrapped in my emotions and my daily struggles to be me and help others be themselves or whatever they choose to be. My causticity stems from my recognition of Finland’s ability to do more to eradicate all forms of racism in the country. Consequently, this thesis is a call to action to all those who find time to read this work.

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List of original Publications

This thesis consists of a summary and the following publications

Paper 1.0

Alemanji, A A and Dervin, F. (2016). “If an apple is a foreign apple you have to wash it very carefully”: Youth discourses on racism. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice

Paper 2.0

Alemanji, A A. (in press). Mothers’ of immigrant background children struggle in educating their children to survive acts racial violence. World Series in Education.

Paper 2.1

Alemanji A A. and Dervin, F. (2015). Antiracism apps as actants of education for diversities. World Studies in Education. 16(2) 57-67

Paper 3.0

Layne, H. & Alemanji, A A. (2015).‘‘Zebra world’’: The promotion of imperial stereotypes in a children’s book. Power and Education.7 (2) 181-195

Paper 3.1

Alemanji, A A., Johnson Longfor, R. W. & Óskarsdóttir, E. (2015) Holocaust education: An alternative approach to antiracism education? A study of a Holocaust textbook used in 8th grade in an international school in Finland. Diversities and Interculturality in Textbooks. ed Hahl, Niemi, Johnson Longfor and Dervin Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 125-148.

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1 Introduction

I have often introduced myself in the following way: “hello I am Amin, a researcher at the University of Helsinki working on the issue of antiracism education in Finland.” I have observed that this is often followed by a quiet exclamation and a smug smile. I often wondered if this was because of who I was or what I was doing or if it was just my accent in English – the only language I can speak and write fluently. In March 2015, a journalist working for YLE news (a Finnish media outlet) helped me understand the reason for my interlocutors’ response when she followed hers with the question “oh is there such a thing (as antiracism education) in Finland?” This made me understand that in this thesis my first task was to discover what antiracism education in Finland was and, if it existed, how it was realised: Where, by whom and for whom? And what are some of its challenges and successes? Put differently, the main purpose of this thesis is to investigate what antiracism education is on a practical and conceptual level in Finland. At the conceptual level, using literature, this study examines how and why antiracism as a concept is theorised and explores the challenges to and possible gains from a potential shift in existing antiracist strategies in Finland. At the practical level (using both literature and research data) this study investigates how antiracism education Finland is “done” and how it could be done differently. This thesis is thus centred on the theme of antiracism. However, it touches on elements of critical constructivism, critical interculturality, and critical race theory.

This project began as an action study aimed at identifying and understanding the challenges of a particular antiracism project in Finnish upper secondary schools. Disappointed by the resistance to change¹ from within the project, a result of the influence of the project’s sponsors (The Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Board of Education), I set out to find gold from my pool of mud – switching my focus towards understanding the broader picture of antiracism in Finland. The result is this thesis, which is based on a compilation of five peer-reviewed articles, three of which I am the first author, one of which I am the second and one of which I am the sole author. These articles cut across different educational categories, covering formal education, informal education and non-formal education. The first paper – Paper 1.0 (“If an apple is a foreign apple you have to wash it very carefully”: Youth discourses on racism, 2016)

–

is set within the

1 As a researcher (especially one dealing with issues of racism) I am interested in conflict, an interest which is seldom shared by NGOs or programmes depending on external funding for their existence and sustenance.

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2

framework of the aforementioned antiracism education project. This paper offers a critique of the questions used in anti-racism discourse and education. It demonstrates the dangers of asking the

“wrong” questions in antiracism education by examining how students responded to a set of questions presented to them in the CONNECT workshop. This paper is pivotal as the inaugural paper for this thesis for several reasons. First, CONNECT (KYTKE) (an antiracism education workshop organised by Walter, an NGO in Finland) is a practical example of antiracism education in Finland, with over fifty thousand participants (students and staff) between 2010 and 2015.

Moreover, the paper presents insights into and a brief overview of how antiracism education is realised in Finland

From an understanding of what antiracism education is and how antiracism education is positioned in Finland, I proceed to an examination of the strategies for doing antiracism education in Finland, both in the informal/non-formal² sector and within formal education. People chuckle when I say my research investigates racism in the non-formal, informal and formal education sectors. One person asked me if there was anything like informal education in Finland, leading me to google “informal education” to confirm that I was not stupid or living on another planet. I understand formal education to be classroom-based, hierarchically structured education provided by trained teachers that runs chronologically from primary school through to university and is bound by fixed institutional principles (a curriculum, written and hidden) (see Alemanji 2010, Maddox 2008, Hoppers 2008). Informal education, on the other hand, is a lifelong learning process whereby each individual acquires knowledge, skills, attitudes and values from daily experiences with or around people (friends, family etc.) and the things of the world (Alemanji 2010). Non-formal education, in turn, refers to any organised educational activity outside a given school programme (Alemanji 2010, Maddox 2008, Hoppers 2008). These programmes can take place within a school setting but are organised (content and style) by individuals or groups that independent of the school (often community groups and non-governmental organisations). Importantly, however, it is often difficult to make a clear distinction between these three educational types because there is often a crossover, especially in terms of informal and non-formal education (McGivney, 1999).

In my studies of CONNECT, when answering the question “where does racism come from?” (one of the questions posed by CONNECT), the participants often said that racism came from the home.

2Informal/non-formal education is often intertwined both in my work and in that of others.

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3 This inspired me to attempt to understand the nature of antiracism education out of school – specifically at home. Paper 2.0 (Mothers of immigrant background children struggle in educating their children to survive acts racial violence, in press) investigates how parents of immigrant³ background children in Finland deal with racism and how they educate their children to deal with racial violence. Resisting the urge to push their children to respond to violence (racism) with violence, parents turn to teaching their children to let go, smile and try to ignore all forms of racism.

The paper challenges this liberal view of “letting go” as a reaction to racism, proposing, instead, Ahmed’s (2012) strategy of balancing a passive approach with an active response (against racist violence) depending on the specific time and space.

Paper 2.1, Antiracism Apps as Actants of Education for Diversities (2015), which is set at the intersection of non-formal and informal education, examines how mobile phone applications could be used as tools for teaching about racism. The paper highlights the successes and challenges of doing antiracism education using such applications. This study argues that with the popularity of smartphones in Finland, antiracism efforts could explore the potential of accessibility (used everywhere and anytime) offered by mobile phones. The paper also cautions that, like other antiracism strategies, the use of technologies as actants of antiracism education is not without its pitfalls.

Furthermore, beyond the non-formal/informal context, antiracism education also has the potential to flourish within formal education. One way of doing this is through educating educators and students to identify, deconstruct and create counter-essentialist discourses, fostering an antiracist climate in and out of school. Paper 3.0, “Zebra World” – The Promotion of Imperial Stereotypes in a Children’s Book (2015), highlights the dangers of stereotypical representations of “Others” in children books. As a source of learning, such representations provide children with stereotypical understandings of the “Other” which, if left unquestioned/unchallenged, could have racist consequences.

3 Maahanmuuttaja in Finnish. In Finland, the word immigrant can be considered a new racial category, as it is often used as a synonym for black. Although the definition of an immigrant is someone who has migrated from one country to another, all immigrants are not equal. Moreover, in Finland, for example, immigrants of colour are the primary targets of this identity marker when it used pejoratively.

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Paper 3.1, Holocaust Education: An Alternative Approach to Antiracism Education? A Study of a Holocaust Textbook Used in 8th Grade in an International School in Finland (2015), takes this argument further by focusing on how a textbook on Holocaust education could be used as an antiracism education textbook. Using the concept of intersectionality, this study argues that through exploring otherness (the intersecting variable in both racism and the Holocaust) by understanding how it is established and how a single variable cannot stand in isolation to other variables associated with the othered person, educators and students could identify and understand the complex forms of othering that occur in education.

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The diagram below (research design) illustrates how the papers summarised above come together in this thesis.

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5 Figure 1: Research Design.

The diagram illustrates the different publications that tie this thesis together, commencing with a case study and moving on to antiracism education strategies in both formal and informal education.

“IF AN APPLE IS A FOREIGN APPLE YOU HAVE TO WASH IT VERY CAREFULLY”:

YOUTH DISCOURSES ON RACISM (2016).

ANTIRACISM APPS AS ACTANTS OF EDUCATION FOR DIVERSITIES (2015)

Holocaust Education: An Alternative Approach to Antiracism Education?

A Study of a Holocaust Textbook Used in 8th Grade in an International School in

Finland (2015)

“ZEBRA WORLD” – THE PROMOTION OF IMPERIAL STEREOTYPES IN A CHILDREN’S

BOOK (2015) MOTHERS’ OF IMMIGRANT

BACKGROUND CHILDREN STRUGGLE IN EDUCATING THEIR CHILDREN TO SURVIVE ACTS RACIAL VIOLENCE (in press)

Part One: Case study:

Non-formal Education

Part Two: Strategies 1&2 Informal/Non-formal Education

Part Three: Strategies 3&4 Formal Education

RESEARCH DESIGN

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The outline of this summary flows from theory to methodology and results. I commence with conceptual discussions on race and racism, paying attention to two distinct theoretical frameworks – postcoloniality and neo-racism (postraciality). I continue with discussions on antiracism and antiracism education vis-à-vis multicultural education in Finland. From there, I move on to examine the specific issue of racism in Finland using four interconnected theoretical lenses – Finnish exceptionalism, coloniality of power, whiteness theory, and denial of racism. Methodology looks into the methodology used in this thesis. The main task of this section is to bring all the thesis papers (articles) together; here I discuss what I have done in each paper and how each paper contributes to the outcome of antiracism education in Finland as well as to this thesis. In the final part, I discuss how antiracism education is realised in Finland and how it could be developed further. The theoretical and empirical arguments in this thesis are drawn from all five papers discussed above.

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2 Racism, Race and Antiracism 2.1

Race in racism

Race today is supposed to be a thing of the past. And yet all we do, seemingly, is to talk about it. We talk (about) race when not talking (about) it; and we don’t talk (about) it when (we should be)

talking (about) it. (Goldberg, 2015, 1)

One evening, my eldest daughter pointed at a black girl on the other side of a shop and exclaimed,

“mum, look at the black girl there, she smells”. Shocked by such an unexpected outburst, I quizzed my three-year old daughter as to why she thought this random black girl smelled. She told me it was because she was black. This broke my heart because my daughter is herself non-white⁴. My heartbreak came not only from the fact that she had been told all black girls smelled but also because society had started teaching her about racialised hierarchical structures at such a young age;

first, by making her believe her race was inferior before making her aware of her race. Despite the challenges and frustrations surrounding the discourses of race and racism, it is clear that the changing nature of the politics of race, new forms of racial ideologies and changing understandings of identity politics in different parts of the world, have caused these discourses to evolve. In academic circles, this has led the debate on race and racism to move from biology, where the understanding of race had been situated from the 1920s to the 1970s, to cultural difference, where it now seems to be located (Back & Solomos, 2009). Goldberg (2015) describes race as something imbedded deep in our subconscious – we talk about it when not talking about it. “Race has to do, it has always had to do, more complexly with the set of views, dispositions, and predilections concerning culture, or more accurately of culture tied to colour, of being to body, of ‘blood’ to behaviour” (Goldberg, 2006, 349). Race is a socially constructed concept born from the activities of othering based on skin colour, in particular, as well as other social factors like religion, gender and sexuality. These additional factors come into play because the construct of race and racialised identity is not an isolated process created by a single static framework. The constructs of race and racialised identity are the products of history and social classification.

4 Historically (in America), children born of black and white parents have always occupied a middle place and lack the authority to claim belonging to any distinct race. Condemned by whites as product of an “abominable” union, they were less than whites but higher that blacks in the social hierarchy. In contrast, blacks considered them less than blacks because they were believed to be prone to diseases (see Romano, 2003).

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Goldberg (2015) argues that race has always established the line between those who belong and those who do not belong. He continues by claiming that race

initially defined who was human and who was not, who belonged and who was exploitable, not only who could work but the kind of work they were licensed to do.

Race identified whose bodies were alienable, who counted socially and who were disposable, who were fit to live (on) and who could be left or made to die, where and how. (Goldberg 2015, 11)

Although Goldberg writes about the past, such an understanding of racial categorisation remains very true today in most parts of the world, especially in “western” countries, which often fail to match their ideals of equality by rejecting racialised groups or people.

In the sixteenth century, race (as purity of blood – a distinction between nobles and peasants or believers and infidels) did not yet have the meaning it acquired in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see Mignolo 2002; Grosfoguel 2011; Goldberg 2015). It emerges first as a distinction based on the binary of purity of blood – believers/infidels – then, at beginning in the eighteenth century, and continuing until the present day (2016), race came to represent the dichotomy between the civilized and the uncivilized or barbarians (Mignolo 2002). Goldberg (2015, 11) adds that from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, racial classification “ordained those of European decent as inherently superior, and those of non-European descent or those regarded less fully European as ranking on a scale of ontological inferiority and objectification”. Grosfoguel (2011, 6) adds that such a classification can also be tied to the issue of knowledge hierarchy, which has seen racialised others go from the sixteenth century characterisation of “people without writing” to the eighteenth and nineteenth-century characterisation of “people without history”, to the twentieth-century characterisation of “people without development” and more recently, to the early twenty-first- century notion of “people without democracy”. It is important to approach such hierarchical binaries from the understanding that they constitute the grounds upon which race as we understand it today is based.

In the light of such understanding, I align myself with the political sociologist and social Alana Lentin when she claims that attempts to understand race should not be geared towards knowing

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9 what race is, because such attempts often work against the conception of race as socially constructed (Lentin, 2015). Rather, as Lentin (2015) argues, priority should be given to understanding what race does. In a country like Finland, race offers ideologically dominant or subservient positions to different groups, with the white male at the top of the ladder and the black (non-white/non-European) Muslim man⁵ languishing at the bottom. Here, what race does is give the

‘white race’ power over the ‘black race’, informed through history and maintained and sustained through structures like the media (van Dijk 2009; Keskinen 2013) and education (Alemanji et al., 2015; Layne & Alemanji 2015), among others. Race “fixes people in place, setting them within the bounds and constrains of pre-conceived notions of nature, possibility, and presumptuous predictability” (Goldberg 2015, 10). It also marks the contours of belonging and not belonging. In doing all this, it places racialised people (non-whites) at the bottom of “all” the ideological ladders in comparison to the racialising (white⁶) groups.

Going forward, Lentin (2015, 1401) highlights the fact that “rejecting race appears common-sense if we (as members of any given society) approach it straightforwardly as a false biological theory”.

However, because race has never been a purely biological concept, one cannot reject its usage within a social or societal sphere on the grounds of its biological understanding. Thus, on a cultural or societal note, “race works with and in the service of racism” (ibid., 1402), as it plays a fundamental role in the understanding or coloniality upon which history and the current essentialisation of otherness is grounded. Dei and Calliste (2000, 14) propose that “working with the race concept means acknowledging the power of constructing racial differences”. This entails rejecting the idea of race as meaningless while problematising and dissociating ourselves with the negativity behind the term (ibid.). Race as a concept has and will always have profound “social, material and political consequences” (ibid. 2000, 14) for all humanity, irrespective of skin colour, gender or sexuality. Thus, race cannot be ignored in debates of discourses of racism in any context.

Ignoring the variable of race or replacing it with ‘culture’ because of the shame, guilt and fear historically connected with term simply lessens our understanding of race and makes the task of reducing racism more difficult.

5 With the recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the paranoia born of them, some people argue that Muslim men are at the bottom of the racial hierarchy because today being a Muslim man is almost synonymous with being a terrorist. This is not fixed in any way and can be justified and argued differently by different people in different contexts.

6 In this thesis, white refers to people who by virtue of skin colour or nationality or way of being are able to claim whiteness and be perceived as white. White is a social construct not a biological one.

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In Finland, as in most Nordic countries, race is a word that is seldom used. However, its lack of use does not mean that it plays a lesser role in the lives of people who benefit or suffer from their racialised position. Although seldom acknowledged, race plays a role in the daily construction of life in Finland. This is noticeable (most often) to people from minority groups, especially when certain policies and practices deny them access or strip them of their dignity. For example, it is recognised that immigrants face challenges (language, skin colour etc.) in accessing certain top professional positions in Finland. Rastas (2005, 2007) observes that one of the main reasons why race is seldom used in Finnish discourse is because of its ambiguous meaning and the fact that when evoked, it is often strongly attached to racial biology. Tuori (2009, 74) adds that “in the Finnish language a breed of dog or cat or cow is called [a] ‘race’”. As a result of the historical burden attached to the usage and understanding of race and the ambiguity of the term in Finnish, the word is often omitted from the relevant discourses and policies in Finland. In its place, the words

‘culture’ (Lentin & Titley, 2011) and ‘ethnicity’⁷ (Jorenen & Solonen, 2006) are used, as they do not carry the same “burden”. “Ethnicity (and culture) has therefore become the concept used to understand differences in Finland” (ibid. 2009, 74). In a similar vein, the word “immigrant” is gaining ground as a racialised category attached to non-white people in Finnish discourse. What race “does” in this case is to make immigrants the target of blame for a whole range of problems in Finland (see Puuronen 2011; Egharevba 2011; Riitaoja 2013). As a result, some Finns, especially extreme-right populists and nationalists, have “launched a war” against immigration (especially asylum seekers), immigrants and multiculturalism (which they believe is a product of immigration).

In sum, I side with Puuronen (2011) and other critics who observe that avoiding the use of race as a central socio-political/economic category in Finland because of the term’s biological connotations may lead to the silencing of the racial experiences of the racialised. On the other hand, Tuori (2009) observes that, race often appears in quotation marks in Finnish texts to show that it is a constructed category. In this study, I indeed acknowledge that race is a constructed category; however, I choose not to place it in quotation marks because I believe this would make it anything or everything. It makes it whatever the reader wants to think of it or call it. To me this does not recognise, or

7 In this thesis I chose not to discuss the term ‘ethnicity’ as a means of decongesting the literature and understanding racism. This is because ethnicity is a complex, shallow and ‘liquid’ concept (“binding” people into groups based on variables like religion, nationality, physical appearance, kinship etc.) brought into the discourse of race and culture to further complicate concepts that require simplicity. Like “culture” in inter-culture or multi-culture, ethnicity is just another “white” term that helps to maintain the power structure by confusing the man on the street, whose ultimate goal is to keep things simple.

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11 appreciate the effects of race (ideologically and practically) on the lives of racialised people in Finland and in many other countries.

2.2

Racism (as a concept)

The first time I told my father (a small rural farmer in Fontem, a small village in Cameroon) that I was researching racism/antiracism issues, his reaction was a mixture of shock and disbelief, before he found the courage (overcoming his fear of seeming uninformed) to ask me if it was still a relevant topic for a PhD in the 21^st century. Convincing my father that racism, although an “old”

concept, still had a profound effect on my life, the lives of my children in Finland and millions of others, was the starting point from which I could help him understand that racism was never “too old” a concept, as it continuously changes form depending on variables like place, time, history, socio-political structures and the economy. As Dei (2006, 16) puts it, “racism implicates each of us in profound ways” regardless of who we are or where we are as humans. My objective in this section is to present a working definition of racism by paying attention to various academic discourses on the issue.

The question of why we are still stuck with racism after all these years is becoming hackneyed and overused in the literature and discourses on racism. Lentin and Lentin (2006), drawing on the connection between racism and universalism (borrowing from Etienne Balibar 1991a), highlight that because the power of racism is in its ability to define the frontiers of humanity, who occupies the margins and who occupies the centre,

the reason why racism has endured past the end of slavery, the Holocaust and into the postcolonial era is that it was able to institute ideas about the purportedly inherent differences between West and East, “civilised” and “primitive”, or in other words, between the “raceless” and the “raced”. (Lentin & Lentin 2006, 6)

Lentin and Lentin (2006) also argue that the ideas of racism and universalism both reflect and oppose each other, because in the quest to define “a general idea of man”, which constitutes the core of universalism, the dominant white male (of European decent) identity is held as the universal norm in opposition to other (non-white, Muslim, female, LGBTQA – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and Asexual or Ally) identities.

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Like most social concepts, the meanings of racism have been fiercely contested in recent decades, and the understanding of the concept continues to undergo significant changes within academia, the socio-political sphere as well as in daily societal discourses. Lentin and Titley (2011), Mills (2007) and Goldberg (2015), for instance, explain that there has been a shift from racism as discrimination on the grounds of biology to racism on the grounds of cultural difference. As a researcher, I believe that my duty is not to complicate complexities; rather, it is to simplify them (see Dervin, Layne &

Tremion, 2015). Because racism is a complex concept interwoven into everyday human life and relationships, in this study racism will be defined as the average person would define it, i.e.

discrimination based on skin colour. However, understanding and acknowledging the limitations of this definition, I would like to point out that no definition of a concept like racism is holistic or without limitations.

A person’s understanding of racism is shaped by several variables, such as life experience and focus (the centre of interest). The more diverse one’s life experiences, the more one begins to understand racism from diverse angles with diverse interpretations, all of which represent important pieces of the jigsaw necessary for a “holistic” understanding of the concept. Like the story of the blind men and the elephant in Jain, Buddhist, Sufi and Hindu lore,⁸ my understanding of racism is informed by neo-racist theory (Balibar 1991a; Goldberg 2006; 2015), postcolonial theory (Mignolo 2000, 2002, 2009; Grosfoguel 2011) and, somehow, by a street understanding of racism. Above all, my understanding of racism is shaped by the colour of my skin and the realisation of what it means to be black (non-white/non-European) in Finland, a realisation that dawned on me upon my arrival in Finland in 2008. My drive and ultimate commitment come from my fatherly instinct, to be able to protect and teach my Finnish daughters, who have and will be labelled “not Finnish enough” in the country of their birth, where they live and hold passports, because they do not conform to the Finnish norm of blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin. One of my ultimate objective in life, which this study helps me accomplish, is to teach my children who they are (beautiful Finnish children with a Cameroonian heritage), what they are (what they wish and aspire to become) irrespective of what the world around them may tell them they are or try to make of them. In the section that follows, I discuss different theoretical frameworks that have influenced my understanding of racism

8A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. In their quest to understand and describe it to each other, they began touching it to attain an understanding of its “true nature”. The blind man who touched the elephant’s leg described it as a pillar. The one touching its ears described it as husking basket. The one who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently, again.

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13 in this study. I commence with postcoloniality because it is the earliest critical methodology I used to develop understanding of myself as a black man coming to consciousness of (racial) social injustices. Neo-racism (racelessness, colour-blindness) and postraciality on the other hand continue to open my eyes to the changing natures of racism.

2.2.1 Postcoloniality

Postcolonial theory largely emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, as countries and people once ruled as colonies struggled for and gained political independence. In their struggle to understand the effects of colonial rule, postcolonial scholars have written and spoken widely on its effect on both the colonised and the colonisers. Tuori (2009, 63) observes that postcoloniality can be understood from two distinct angles: understanding “specific histories and their legacies in the world” and “how racial differences and otherness, as well as centres and peripheries, are created”

and sustained. These two strategic perspectives play a vital role in maintaining and reproducing racism. Such postcolonial perspectives of racism are reproduced by social structures and cultural meanings that are bigger than any individual and outlast any historical period (Mignolo 2009). It must be noted that postcoloniality is a very broad area of research with multiple interpretations. My understanding and application of postcoloniality is influenced by critical race theory (e.g. Goldberg 2002, 2006, 2015; Mignolo 2009); thus, this study takes the view that othering in relation to race – the assumption that difference (especially non-white related difference) is inferior, exotic, savage and evil in comparison to the dominant (white) culture – must be challenged.

In Orientalism, the ground-breaking book by the postcolonial theorist Edward Said (1978), the author demonstrates how “the West”, or the “Occident”, (Europe and North America seen in contrast to other civilizations) has defined itself through its portrayal of the East (“Orient”) as its polar opposite, where the West’s depiction of itself as “civilized” and “advanced” is pitted against the description of its binary opposite, “the East” (Asian and Middle East), as “barbaric”,

“backwards, but also “erotic”. The groundwork laid by critics like Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in his Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (1999) and Homi Bhabha in Nation and Narration (1990) has been built upon by several critics striving to make the voices of the oppressed audible in a quest for a racially just world. This divide between

“us” and “them” does not exist on a linear basis. Instead, its basis is hierarchical along the lines of

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superiority and inferiority established by colonial ideologies and reinforced by continued racialisation.

A good example of how racism can be understood within the framework of postcolonial theory is that racism is a socio-political concept which devalues knowledges beyond Greek, Latin and Christian theology (see Mignolo 2000, 2002) and non-Western people based on an established colonial backdrop where everything/anyone non-western/non-white is considered backward and uncivilized in comparison to everything or anyone western. In this hierarchical social interplay, Goldberg (2002) argues that the ‘racially inferior races’ established by colonialism are often classified in two ways: either as people who will always remain backward and forever in need of instruction and control from their Western counterparts (racial naturalism) or, as people who are capable of attaining knowledge but only through education from their masters (racial historicism).

In sum, the postcolonial understanding of racism stems from the ideologies of colonialism, power and domination of the Other (Balibar 1991b; Mignolo, 2009), which cannot be ignored in one’s understanding of racism in everyday life.

2.2.2 From neo-racism (racelessness, colour-blindness) to postraciality

The concept of neo-racism can be considered an advanced chapter in the theorization of postcolonial discourse. Balibar (1991a, 17) reminds us that racism is a socially constructed phenomenon that is historically essential and has long lasting effects on the lives of its victims.

Racism – a true social phenomenon inscribed through practices (forms of violence – contempt, intolerance, humiliation and exploitation), in discourses and representations which are so many intellectual elaborations of the phantasm of prophylaxis which are articulated around the stigmata of otherness (name, skin colour, religious practices) – thus it organizes affects (e.g. irrational ambivalence) by conferring upon them a stereotyped form as regards both their objects and their subjects.

For Balibar (1991b, 43), the ambivalence of racism is exercised as a heritage of colonialism that is, in reality, “a fluctuation of continued exteriorisation and ‘internal exclusion’ … the interiorisation of the exterior” and “exteriorization of the interior”. In other words, racism is practised in the simultaneous assimilation and rejection of the other. Moreover, Bhabha (1994) asserts that racism is founded on, but at the same time undermined by, the ambivalence of the colonizer, who fears, and

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15 so distinguishes himself from, the colonized Other while simultaneously needing or desiring the Other to be recognized as master or superior. Bhabha terms this paradox “hybridity” (ibid.). The result of this ambivalence is the creation of a mimic man (racial object), who is “almost the same, but not quite” (ibid., 127) (also see Mignolo, 2009). The discursive instability in racial discourses that both Bhabha and Balibar observe offers the possibility for intervention, resistance and the interruption of racial dominance by racialised groups and individuals. Balibar (1991a, 22) argues that neo-racism is a “displacement of the problematic … which naturalises not racial belonging but racial conduct”. Within neo-racist discourse, the concept of race is often replaced by the concept of culture (and sometimes community), as culture does not have the same socio-political baggage as race in racism (Lentin & Titley 2011; Dei & Calliste 2000).

Moreover, cultural difference is viewed as something negative that threatens rather than enriches cultures and nations and which should be eliminated either through the expulsion of the Other or his/her assimilation. Neo-racism is an expressive Eurocentric notion of progress and civilization in which the hierarchy of biological (race) is reconstituted in the very type of criteria applied in conceptualising the difference between cultures (Balibar 1991a; Mignolo, 2009). The only aspect of neo-racism that is “new” is the discourses through which racism is articulated. Moreover, Balibar (1991a) as well as Goldberg (2006, 2015) argue that neo-racism is not a novel form of racism, as this is the state in which racism was practised during the European Enlightenment and in anti- Semitism (also see Gillborn 1995).

Culture, which replaces race in discourses of neo-racism, in this instance acts like nature, “locking individuals and groups a priori into a genealogy, into a determination that is immutable and intangible in origin … the idea of hierarchy is reconstituted in the very type of criteria applied in thinking the difference between cultures” (Balibar 1991a, 22–24) (see also colonial difference, Mignolo, 2009). Neo-racism applies the notion of colonial cultural difference to effect cultural hierarchies that achieve the same division of humanity that is achieved by the pseudo-biological concept of race.

Furthermore, neo-racism, in its claim that race is a thing of the past that should be ignored and substituted with culture, aligns itself with the concept of postraciality, which “amounts to a general

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social ecology within which race and racism are supposedly outmoded but where, in fact, racist expressions have gone viral” (Goldberg 2015, 106). Postraciality, in denying all forms of racism, discredits all forms of naming and seeing racism. It denies the historical conditions and legacy of racism. Under postraciality, race becomes transparent - invisible. This may explain why though it is often difficult to define the Other (non-whites) by their racial category; it is easy to discriminate against them by what cannot be named. Postraciality has made it very easy for people to claim that we are now living in a post-racial society while at the same time refusing to acknowledge that the very society in which they live had ever been racial (Goldberg, 2015). Just as “post” in postcolonial does not mark the end of the colonial, so too “post” in postraciality does not mark the end of raciality (Goldberg, 2015). Rather, denotes a new incarnation of the phenomenon.

The Nordic countries are struggling to incorporate the concept of postraciality into socio-political discourse because claiming to be post-racist means one was formerly racist (see Goldberg, 2015).

In a nutshell, neo-racism and postraciality in Europe are grounded on the denial of racism, where there are no racists and racism is considered a thing of the past (Balibar 1991a; Goldberg 2006) and where race is replaced by culture (Lentin & Titley, 2011). Race is considered an unstable and redundant word that only belongs in history books, and even some history books try to avoid it as far as possible (see Goldberg, 2015). In neo-racism, race (colour) is not important; what is important is culture. The emphasis is on how people from different cultures, rather than people from difference races, interact. Culture, as a thing of the present without the same historical implication as race, is given centre stage (Lentin & Titley 2011; Balibar 1991a) without an investigation of its own weaknesses.

In short, as varied as the understanding of racism is, in this thesis my conception of racism is informed by a postcolonial and neo-racist framework wherein racism is not merely prejudice and discrimination against the Other (often non-white) sustained through power established through colonial history and the socio-political order of a given time. As Rasmussen observes, it is not solely “irrational prejudice, a form of socio-political discrimination, or an ideological motive in a political doctrine; rather, it is a form of government that is designed to manage a population”

(Rasmussen 2011, 34). In this study, racism refers to discrimination or prejudice based on difference, starting from skin colour and reaching out to other variables like gender, sexuality, religion etc., and exercised through the use of power. Racism is a necessary form of rhetoric used to

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17 devaluate, and justify as dispensable, lives that are portrayed (by hegemonic discourses) as less valuable. Once again, the bottom line of racism is devaluation and not skin colour. Skin colour is just the marker used to devaluate. Thus, when human beings were commoditised through slavery, they did not just lose their rights but they lost their humanity. Put differently, racism is not about skin colour for the sake of skin colour; it is about the hierarchies and dehumanisation produced by skin colour – what it was, what it is and what it should be.

When literature on racism ignores the role of the state,⁹ it is incomplete, as racism does not exist in a vacuum (see Foucault 1997; Goldberg 2002). As Lentin & Lentin observe, “racism both past and present is inextricably linked both to the policy instituted by states and to the political climate engendered by governmental leaders playing the proverbial ‘race card’” (2006, 2). All nation-states are raced states (Lentin & Lentin 2006; Goldberg 2002), as they are established to serve and protect their citizens’ interest over the interest of others. The borders that define nation states establish the inherent divide between nationals and non-nationals, which in turn sets the tone for citizens to create and maintain the dichotomy between “us” and “them”. This established dichotomy, when pitted against the histories and political climate of a given country, breeds racial tension, which in turns facilitates racism. Balibar’s (1991a) notion of second-class citizenry, who may have been granted the nationality a given state but lack the full rights maintained for “true” citizens, is an example of racism that can be upheld by the state. Zygmunt Bauman’s (1989) metaphor of the gardener who is inclined to weed out the plants he/she did not plant in his garden so that his/her crops can fully benefit from every resource available exemplifies how racism is interwoven into the construct and sustenance of nationhood and nationalism.

2.3

Antiracism (Education)?

Influenced by Paulo Friere, Dei and Calliste (2000) establish an understanding of education as

“strategies, processes and structures through which individuals and communities/groups come to know and understand the world and act within it” (Dei & Calliste, 2000, 13). Thus, education is not limited to formal or institutionalised learning processes. In this study, I incorporate this idea of

9 The idea of the nation state is a colonial and racial process. For example, Cameroon (where I was born) was

“discovered” by the Portuguese, who gave the country its name – Rio dos Cameroes (river of prawns), colonised by the Germans and mapped by Europeans in 1884 (Berlin Conference) and liberated from colonial rule by Britain and France.

Its history was written by the Europeans, who branded the indigenous population inferior in every way possible. This ideology of inferiority has been passed on through education from generation to generation (including today).

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education as a social practice necessary for positive change. Dei (2006) suggests that within an institutionalised setting, formal education should not attempt to ignore the social reality of categories such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, language, ability and religion. Rather, educators need to work with these categories, borrowing from local examples and personal/real life, to demonstrate how and why these social categories matter in our daily lives.

Antiracism is often understood to pertain to the subversion of racism, as the prefix “anti” suggests a sense of retrogression (Lentin, 2008); i.e. it suggests racism precedes anti-racism. In this thesis I have chosen to use antiracism without the hyphen to underline the fact that antiracism is not merely a reaction to racism; rather, it is proactive (a schema that uproots racism or potential racist agendas).

Antiracism holds the institutions (schools, laws, press, political parties, etc.) that are fundamental to

“our” self-perception as citizens of a liberal democratic nation up for scrutiny, forcing them to abide by their commitment to the values of equality central in democratic politics (Lentin 2008). I have argued above that nation states are raced states that prioritise protecting and serving their own citizens over others (either foreign or domestic). These nation states also have laws that uphold equality, justice and respect for human rights. It is through these laws that antiracism seeks to maintain social justice.

Antiracism (education) is a pedagogical discourse as well as an academic and political practice (Dei

& Calliste, 2000). This means that antiracism occupies a proactive space both within and beyond educational institutions. Within this space, Dei and Calliste (ibid., 13) observe that antiracism is an

“action-oriented, educational and political strategy for institutional and systemic change that addresses the issues of racism and the interlocking systems of social oppression (sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism)”. In doing so, antiracist discourse and practice must acknowledge and denaturalise the social categories of skin colour, gender, sexuality, ableism etc. (Dei, 2006), as these categories play a vital role in human interaction and “potential” racialisation. Ignoring these social categories under the guise of sameness (unity, oneness, togetherness or fear of segregation) fails to do justice to racialised victims, who potentially suffer every day because of their otherness. Here, antiracism education aims to break down the process and structures of de-humanisation – thus dismantling the hierarchies produced by human interaction and discourse.

Furthermore, Lentin and Lentin (2006) and Dei (2006) suggest that the lived experiences of those who have faced racism must be recognised in antiracism work. Antiracism cannot be based solely on vague principles that fail to identify or challenge power, privilege and the resultant hierarchies

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19 and stem from notions of tolerance, solidarity and respect for human dignity that rest on human sympathy or empathy alone. Understanding and dismantling historical and social attitudes, and confronting the effects of power (hierarchies) in human relations is one dimension that must be explored. This explains my engagement in such matters and justifies my tone in this thesis, as I am writing from the position and experience of the racialised other in Finland.

Schools¹⁰ (from kindergarten to universities), the press and television, law and justice, employment and trade, art and popular culture continue to be powerful avenues for producing, organising and regulating race knowledge (Dei & Calliste 2000; van Dijk 2000; Alemanji et al., 2015; Lentin &

Lentin 2006). Thus, combating such knowledge, at all levels, remains a priority for antiracism. The work can be done both in and out of schools or other institutions.

Rasmussen (2011) reminds us of Foucault’s genealogy of racism, which inevitably raises the question of resistance by problematizing the effectiveness of existing anti-racist strategies such as popular education, economic redistribution, or the granting of particular rights to minorities. These antiracism strategies only reproduce new power structures, which in turn recycle racism or introduce new forms of racism. However, these antiracism strategies may appear successful on the surface, as they are often designed to counter such phenomena as prejudice, discrimination, and structural biases. Consequently, antiracism strategies must be constantly open to redesign, in order to address the ever-changing forms and understandings of racism.

2.3.1 With the availability of multiculturalism/interculturalism, why antiracism?

Throughout this PhD process, my supervisor and I have discussed the difference between antiracism and interculturality or education for diversities, which are all promoted in Finland under the banner of multicultural education. Here, I must mention that when I began my PhD I was naturally inclined to follow in the footsteps of my supervisor – a professor of multiculturalism. Nevertheless, in my

10 Schools are not neutral establishments existing by chance from “good intentions”. Schools are institutions where hegemonic ideologies and knowledge are processed, sold and recycled (see Grosfoguel 2011, Apple 2000 2004).

Schools serve the purpose of creating citizens who will uphold and maintain the existing power structures. Knowledge production (a goal of education) can also be considered a component of racialisation, as it was used as the foundation for modernity, with man rather than God at its core. Knowledge continues to serve as a racialised tool in the sense that the knowledge of the subaltern remains excluded, omitted, silenced, and/or ignored (Grosfoguel, 2011).

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reading of the literature on multiculturalism or interculturalism, I never felt like it captured my needs or spoke to me. Intercultural/multicultural education appeared both superficial, complex and disjointed, as the concept of culture, the root word in “inter-” and “multicultural”, was so vague. Put side by side with racism (treated as a component of critical multiculturalism), I could relate more to the idea of racism, as it was something that I experienced all too often as a black man in Finland.

To put it simply, multiculturalism (multicultural education) stems from the civil rights movement (1960s America), while interculturalism (intercultural education) stems from mass immigration in Europe (see Dervin et al., 2015). With their two distinct origins (the US vs. Europe), there is bound to be different interpretations of these two concepts. Dervin states that “some European researchers have even demonised the ‘multicultural’, asserting that multicultural education celebrates only cultural differences and ignores similarities, individuality, and the importance of relations and interaction – as the ‘intercultural’ is said to operate” (Dervin et al., 2015, 6). Nevertheless, despite differences of ideology and origin, the terms ‘intercultural’ and ‘multicultural’ both concern people (how they come together and operate together) from different cultures and how they interact.

Moreover, in Finland, as in many other countries and in academia. both interculturalism and multiculturalism are used interchangeably (Dervin 2010; Dervin et al., 2012; Dervin et al., 2015).

Multiculturalism and interculturalism are somewhat bound up with antiracism because they are all concepts, policies and practices involving human interaction regarding otherness and sameness or diversity. As a result, no discussion of antiracism would be complete without mention of multiculturalism/interculturalism. There are, however, various forms of multiculturalism/interculturalism. On this, Mills (2007, 89) states that

There is multiculturalism as state policy (itself varying from nation to nation) and multiculturalism as minority activist demand, multiculturalism as applied generally to the political theorisation of society as a whole and multiculturalism as a applied specifically to tertiary education and curriculum reform, multiculturalism as including the politics of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and disability (critical multiculturalism) and multiculturalism excluding at least some of these.

These different interpretations of multiculturalism vary depending on the specific context. In Finland, multiculturalism discourses have centred on the concept of “tolerance” and the need to promote equality, rather than on racism (see Tuori, 2009) and its effect on people’s lives. In Finland, multiculturalism is politically geared towards immigrants and the need to “teach” them the

Is there such a thing...? : A study of antiracism education in Finland

Aminkeng Atabong Alemanji